In The Dark Side of the Enlightenment John V. Fleming shows how the impulses of the European Enlightenment generally associated with great strides in the liberation of human thought from superstition and traditional religion were challenged by tenacious religious ideas or channeled into the darker pursuits of the esoteric and the occult. His topics include the stubborn survival of the miraculous, the Enlightenment roles of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry,...

Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling historian James MacGregor Burns explores the most daring and transformational intellectual movement in history, the European and American Enlightenment In this engaging, provocative history, James MacGregor Burns brilliantly illuminates the two-hundred-year conflagration of the Enlightenment, when audacious questions and astonishing ideas tore across Europe and the New World, transforming thought, overturning...

The Oxford University German professor and Times Literary Supplement lead reviewer presents a sweeping history of the Enlightenment period that illuminates the era's purposeful, innovation-driven efforts to promote human happiness.

"Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker--a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable...

His Holiness explores the foundation of Buddhism, laying out an accessible and practical approach to age-old questions: How can we live free from suffering? How can we achieve lasting happiness and peace? Drawing from traditional Buddhist meditative practices as well as examples from today's troubled planet, he presents step-by-step exercises designed to expand the reader's capacity for spiritual growth, along with clear milestones to mark the reader's...

Ėtot roman, napisannyĭ v dukhe avanti͡urno-filosofskikh romanov XVIII stoletii͡a, opisyvaet zakhvatyvai͡ushchui͡u ėpokhu, kogda chelovechestvo uchilosʹ obustraivatʹ obshchestvo, myslitʹ i li͡ubitʹ po-novomu. Chto-to poluchalosʹ, chto-to net, no skuchno ne bylo"-- Provided by publisher. "This novel, written in the spirit of adventure-philosophical novels of the 18th century, describes an exciting era when humanity learned to equip society...

Matthieu Ricard trained as a molecular biologist, working in the lab of a Nobel prize—winning scientist, but when he read some Buddhist philosophy, he became drawn to Buddhism. Eventually he left his life in science to study with Tibetan teachers, and he is now a Buddhist monk and translator for the Dalai Lama, living in the Shechen monastery near Kathmandu in Nepal. Trinh Thuan was born into a Buddhist family in Vietnam but became intrigued...

From award-winning authors Charles Johnson and Steven Barnes comes a graphic novel anthology of interconnected Afrofuturistic parables inspired by the teachings of Buddha. Eight strangers--looking for enlightenment from an ancient spiritual teacher--are trapped in a cave high in the mountains on their way to his temple. One of his acolytes directs them to each tell a story that the group can learn from as they wait out the horrible snowstorm that...